“Let him wander his way,” said he⁠—“let those leech his wounds for whose sake he encountered them. He is fitter to do the juggling tricks of the Norman chivalry than to maintain the fame and honour of his English ancestry with the glaive and brown-bill, the good old weapons of his country.”

“If to maintain the honour of ancestry,” said Rowena, who was present, “it is sufficient to be wise in council and brave in execution⁠—to be boldest among the bold, and gentlest among the gentle, I know no voice, save his father’s⁠—”

“Be silent, Lady Rowena!⁠—on this subject only I hear you not. Prepare yourself for the Prince’s festival: we have been summoned thither with unwonted circumstance of honour and of courtesy, such as the haughty Normans have rarely used to our race since the fatal day of Hastings. Thither will I go, were it only to show these proud Normans how little the fate of a son, who could defeat their bravest, can affect a Saxon.”